We were recently sent the Orchard Toys Match and Spell Next Steps game. We used the original game with my youngest last year (Match and Spell Game post) and found it useful in helping him with basic spelling words. The new version – Next Steps – is the same format as the original game however this one includes “harder phonic sounds” like sh, th, ch, all the long vowel sounds, as well as sounds like igh, ng, ph and a lot more.

The game includes 18 double-sided word boards (same idea as last time on one side of the board the word is spelt out and on the other side it is blank with a picture).

But this time both the word boards and the cards either have a line underneath or a single dot. The dot indicates when the sound is made up of a single letter and the line is when the sound is made up of 2 or 3 letters combined. My youngest found this added feature on the boards a big help when he was trying to spell the words by himself.

I think it is a great way for the kids to practice blending their more advance phonic sounds and for my son the big bonus is he is practicing spelling without having to do a worksheet. Because he is playing with sound cards he ends up spelling out a lot more words than he would if he was just using a pencil and piece of paper.

And he even used the sound cards to build his own words.

I am a fan of having educational games in the home as I think the kids learn best when they are relaxed. And I think playing games like this does build the kids confidence in sounding out basic words which will end up making them more confident when it comes to writing.

The Match and Spell game was given to us by Orchard Toys in exchange for a review. All thought about the game are mine and my children’s.